sort of disappointing that for a design contest with this breadth, almost all the finalists are desks. You'd think they'd have applicants with more creativity than just starting with the same stock office object.

It's amazing how many "inventions" these days are just more complicated and expensive ways of implementing things that already exist. Often people count things as inventions simply because they are a supposedly more stylish implementation of an existing technique.

An invention proper is something that does a job that needs doing for which no tool already exists or something that does a job more effectively, efficiently, simply or cost effectively than existing tools.